


In the Dark

by Magnetism_bind



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Character Death, F/M, Heavy Angst, Loneliness, M/M, Mental Institutions, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Solitary Confinement, brief instance of parental abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 07:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10940235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnetism_bind/pseuds/Magnetism_bind
Summary: Thomas had always been afraid of the dark.





	In the Dark

When he was small Thomas was afraid of the dark. 

He used to linger at his games, at his books, at his bath, anything to keep the night from coming, to halt the moment when he’d have to be alone in his bed in the dark. When he confided in his nurse, she told him the dark wouldn’t hurt him, and to think of things he would do in the morning, like playing in the garden and doing his lessons. She meant her words to be reassuring, and they were, to some small extent.

However his mother happened to overhear their conversation and she relayed his fears to his father. Thomas, all of four years in his nightshirt and bare feet, was summoned to his father's study.

His father looked at him sternly over his desk and told him not to be a coward, that Hamilton men weren’t afraid of ridiculous notions. He accompanied these admonishments with several blows from his belt.

Thomas never told his father he was afraid of anything ever again. 

*  *  *

After that his nurse comforted him when he woke crying in the night and kept his nightmares from his parents, but eventually he was too old for a nurse and he was sent away to school.

At school Thomas tried to hide his nightmares, but they still troubled him and the other boys teased him when he woke at night, panting with fear, his nightshirt soaked with sweat, his heart unable to stop racing with inexplainable, incomprehensible fear.

There were times when he didn’t wake gasping in terror and panic, and slowly, he learned to train himself not to have them every single night. He memorized passages from their studies, anything he was reading, to calm his mind, and saying the words over and over in the dark occasionally helped, even if nothing stopped the nightmares altogether.

*  *  *

When he finished at school and returned home to his father’s house in London, they started up again. It was familiar by now, the sweat clinging to his skin, the panic thudding in his chest. The immeasurable length of time it took for stillness to return to him.

Thomas started reading at night when he couldn’t get back to sleep. Often he watched the dawn approaching over the London streets, his mind weary and drifting at that hour.

*  *  *

When Thomas was twenty-one his father started to point out eligible young women he should be thinking of marrying. Thomas ignored them for the most part, but his father was determined his son should be wed, and accordingly planned balls and dinners to meet his future bride.

One day at a party at which there were far too many woman hoping to be the one he married, Thomas snuck off into the library into an alcove with a book instead of dancing. It was a rare moment of peace and he could have spent the afternoon quite happily alone, but there was an interruption.

“Can you make room for one more?”

Thomas found himself looking into a pair of delightful brown eyes and obligingly he moved over. The young woman slipped inside next to him, pulling the curtains close again. Her skirts pressed against his legs. She was very close, the closest he’d ever been to a woman, Thomas reflected. Her skin smelled like violets and Thomas found himself charmed by her smile of open relief at being out of sight at last.

She glanced at him. “I’m sorry to interrupt your privacy, but I needed to get away.”

“Not enjoying the party?”

“Not particularly.” She murmured. “Frankly, I’m just in no mood to be married.”

“What a coincidence. I feel the same.”

“That’s quite the relief then,” She smiled. “Miranda Talbot.”

“Thomas Hamilton.” They shook hands and there was a spark of mischief in her eyes at his name.

“So why don’t you want to be married?”

Thomas considered his answer carefully. “Because I’ve not yet met a woman I could truly be partners with.” He knew he was being too honest, knew too that society didn’t view marriage like that. Thomas didn’t care. He intended those vows to mean something when he made them. That was not the only reason of course, but nevertheless it remained an important one.

“Why don’t you?” He asked, curious.

“I’ve not yet a man who could satisfy me intellectually and physically, nor one that could truly make me laugh.” She admitted with devastating frankness. “Does that shock you?”

“No. My father always says I’m young and don’t know what I want.”

“I know what I want.” Miranda murmured. Her mouth curved into the most delightful smile as she gazed at him and Thomas found himself smiling back.

The rest of the afternoon passed far more pleasantly than he had ever expected it to.

“May I call on you?” Thomas asked at the end of their party when Miranda was taking her leave. He had never enjoyed any conversation so much, and he very much wanted to speak with her again.

Her eyes danced. “I’d like that.”

*  *  *

They married and Thomas found that her presence in their bed helped. The dark was still _there_ , but having someone he could hold, who held him back, soothed his mind tremendously. The nights where the terror still came, Miranda helped then as well, stroking his brow and murmuring calming words until finally he slept again.

*  *  *

Miranda helped keep the dark at bay but it was the introduction of a young naval lieutenant that brought Thomas’s mind true peace.

The first night he spent with James Thomas slept so well he thought he must have been dreaming when he woke the next morning to find himself refreshed, contented, and simply blissful.

 James stirred, rolling over to look at him. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Thomas brushed a thumb over his cheek, kissing him to greet the day.

*  *  *

Eventually he told James about his nightmares, and fears of the dark, just in case he ever did have them while in James’s presence. It was only fair that James have the information, and Thomas prepared himself for the possibility that James might not admire him quite so much, now that he knew this weakness. 

“Is there anything I can do?” James asked, reaching for his hand. “Any way I can help?” He didn’t tell Thomas to not be so childish, or dismiss his fears as trivial. He simply asked.

“You already do.” Thomas dropped a kiss to the back of his hand.

*  *  *

Every night in James’s presence Thomas knew true peace; after that every night without him was hell.

*  *  *

Later Thomas revised that opinion. It hadn’t been hell; it had merely been purgatory on the nights without James. Miranda had still been there with him and she had truly helped. He hadn’t been alone.

Not as he was now.

Hell was Bethlem.

*  *  *

He told himself many stories in his first year there. Stories of how James and Miranda were far away and happy and content and _together_. That was the important part. They were together, they weren’t alone. They missed him of course, but they were together and they were safe, and that was what mattered. Loneliness was bearable at times, but in such a desolate place as this, thinking of them being apart was torture. Thomas would have done anything to prevent the people he loved best in the world from being alone, to keep them from suffering so.

So he stayed quiet and caused no trouble, except at night, when he couldn’t stop himself from waking panicked, screaming in terror.

*  *  *

For the most part he was in a solitary room. There was only darkness. At times Thomas wept in the dark for fear he would never see their faces once more, never see Miranda’s eyes, never see James smile at him again. The darkness threatened to consume him so he resolved not to let it win.

For every time he woke in a panic, heart pounding relentlessly, he reminded himself that he had been truly loved and loved truly in return, and therefore he would never truly be alone.

His faith failed him in moments like that and it was the visage of James he clung to.  James who he turned to for reassurance, for comfort. The thought of James was a light in the dark. The only light that kept Thomas’s soul alight.

*  *  *

When his time in Bethlem was done and he was released into the care of Oglethorpe Peter tried to make him see how this was necessary, for the best, how he would be safe there. 

Thomas wouldn’t look at him. “Just tell me one thing.” He said. “Are they well?”

Peter hesitated and then said, very gently, “Their ship capsized shortly after they left London. I’m so sorry, Thomas.”

Thomas withdrew without another word. It wasn’t true. It didn’t feel true. He would know it in his bones, his gut, his entire soul, if James were dead, if Miranda had ceased to breathe.

He would know.

*  *  *

One afternoon a few years later, Thomas was working in the fields when he felt a curious weakness hit his chest, a heavy trembling sensation struck his legs, and he fell to his knees there in the dirt. The sun still shone, but a shadow had passed through the world.

He saw Miranda standing there before him and he wept, as she put her arms around him.

 “I know…” She whispered. “I know.”

*  *  *

He waited for James to appear, as the days passed slowly by. Days turned into weeks and months, but James didn’t appear.

Thomas dreamed of James, but it wasn’t a specter in his dreams, not a ghost that he held in his arms in the dark. There was no phantom of his lost love. Which to Thomas’s way of thinking meant James was still alive, still walking the same earth as he, still seeing the same stars. It was a reason to rise in the morning, to keep working, to put food in his body, to continue to exist. James was alive.

At this point of his life, what purpose was there in any of this, if he was never going to see James again? The conviction grew stronger within Thomas’s breast every day. One of these days it would simply happen. He would accept no other outcome to his fate.

And on the day that he finally turned and saw James standing there, staring at him across the length of the field, it wasn’t even truly a surprise. 

It was broad daylight, but Thomas felt as though he were waking from a nightmare, waking to the daylight, waking to James.


End file.
